Concatenate .txt files. Write content in one .txt file

Question

I have some .txt files in a folder. I need to collect their content all in one .txt file. I'm working with Python and tried:

import os

rootdir = "\\path_to_folder\\"

for files in os.walk(rootdir):
    with open ("out.txt", 'w') as outfile:
         for fname in files:
             with open(fname) as infile:
                  for line in infile:
                      outfile.write(line)

but did not work. The 'out.txt' is generated but the code never ends. Any advice? Thanks in advance.

Any reason you don't do this in the shell with `find rootdir -type f -exec cat {} + > out.txt` — Barmar, Oct 22 '15 at 16:51
Read the docs for os.walk: https://docs.python.org/3/library/os.html#os.walk — codeape, Oct 22 '15 at 16:51
[Almost a duplicate](http://stackoverflow.com/q/13613336/198633) — inspectorG4dget, Oct 22 '15 at 17:13
Could you please expand on how to do this in the shell with find rootdir -type f -exec cat {} + > out.txt? Thanks — user2278505, Oct 23 '15 at 18:43

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 22 '15 at 17:00

2

os.walk returns tuples, not filenames:

with open ("out.txt", 'w') as outfile:
    for root, dirs, files in os.walk(rootdir):
        for fname in files:
             with open(os.path.join(root, fname)) as infile:
                  for line in infile:
                      outfile.write(line)

Also you should open outfile in the beginning, not in each loop.

answered Oct 22 '15 at 17:00

Eugene Soldatov

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Unfortunately even opening 'outfile' in the beginning I couldn't solve the problem: the loop never ends – user2278505 Oct 23 '15 at 18:41
1

Maybe there are too many files in your directory, try with test data. – Eugene Soldatov Oct 23 '15 at 18:45
It was a good idea to try with test data. The loop eventually ended, but the problem is not solved yet. I opened 6 files of around 150KG and my 'out.txt' is 923,700KG. – user2278505 Oct 26 '15 at 15:07

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 27 '15 at 11:32

This solved my problem. The generated 'out.txt' file is just 151KB.

file_list = os.listdir("\\path_to_folder\\")

with open('out.txt', 'a+') as outfile:
for fname in file_list:
    with open(fname) as infile:
        outfile.write(infile.read())

Thanks everybody.

Concatenate .txt files. Write content in one .txt file

2 Answers2